


Infinite Sleepover

by lamoamadeen



Category: KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Fluff galore, M/M, Meisa makes a very minor appearance or two, Present/Future Canon-ish, random baseball guys, with just the smallest sprinkle of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 14:09:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5969856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamoamadeen/pseuds/lamoamadeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jin wakes up at Kame's, but it's all prim and proper. At least for a while. Or: The one in which they have a zillion sleepovers, and live happily ever after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinite Sleepover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [b_akakame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/b_akakame/gifts).



> Hi b_akakame, this one is for you! :-) I hope it will give you a fun read – I tried to stick to your likes, and may have gone a bit overboard with the Sakamoto and baseball bit. It was fun to write, though, so many thanks for the free-spirited request!

The first time Jin wakes up in Kame's apartment – this apartment, not the one he'd rented on his first big salary back in the day – is the morning after Pi turns thirty. Jin's head houses a sledgehammer concert, and for a few seconds, he doesn't know where he is. The room is dark, the blinds down far enough that there's only silhouettes and dark corners. The smell of the sheets scratches at a memory, though, and Jin hits the light switch faster than the sledgehammers can follow, remembers towels shared during concert runs, swapped clothing returned freshly laundered.

He grits his teeth against the nausea once his head catches up with the sudden movement. The lights glare, so he squints against the bright bursts of pain, because surely he's hallucinating. But there's movement on the bed next to him, and for a split second, Jin feels a frantic pulse burst through his body and turn it into a weightless, nauseous pit, while he himself remains locked in place by horrified disbelief.

Then Meisa groans next to him, and tells him to cut the goddamned lights already.

Jin is flattened by relief, but luckily, the bed is there to catch him. Stupid, he tells himself, and wonders if thirtieth birthdays turn people paranoid.

By the time Jin and Meisa leave the spare bedroom, Kame seems to have left the apartment, though not without setting the breakfast table and timing the rice cooker by a surprisingly accurate estimate. There's a note telling them not to worry, and not to restrain themselves. But they both had enough not restraining themselves at Pi's birthday bash yesterday, so they just sip some miso soup and take a curtesy helping of rice each. They leave a thank you note, and head to Jin's parents to relieve them of their babysitting duty.

That's the first time Jin wakes up in Kame's apartment, and since he doesn't believe there'll be a repeat occurrence, he doesn't think anything of it, and certainly doesn't start counting.

-

 

The second time Jin wakes up in Kame's apartment, he's actually jerking awake from where he nodded off on the couch after lugging home a drunk-off-the-gills Kame. It was a joint effort with one of Kame's baseball gods, a Giants guy called Sakamoto, who even Meisa finds absolutely gorgeous. 

Jin bumped into them by chance, because the car pickup from the ritzy kind of bars Kame frequents is usually swift and discrete. Jin was in a... somewhat less upscale place, and the only reason he took the backroad was the random group of sleazy-looking guys blocking the main road.

Jin is no chicken, but he'd prefer to keep his kidneys until the money really and truly runs out. 

He saw the car further down the backroad, and recognized something familiar in the boneless wobbling and grabbing of the man being wrangled towards the car door. The further Jin approached, the surer he got, until he stood right behind Sakamoto and offered, "Need another set of hands?"

"Oh, thank god," Sakamoto sighed, and together, they managed to pack Kame down into the car and onto the bench and below the seat belt. 

Jin felt a weird sort of kinship, so he went for a handshake once Sakamoto said, "Akanishi, right?"

It's intimidating how someone so pretty can have a handshake like that.

Then Kame slurred his address at the private driver, except it wasn't, not really. Jin took pity on him and scrambled into the car, before Kame would have inevitably wound up in a drunken heap on the doorstep of the Kamenashi residence, possibly puking into his mother's bonsai collection.

"You helping?" Jin asked Sakamoto, who sighed again but took the passenger seat without any protest. Ritzy bars or no, Kame sure still knew a thing or two about picking up friends. 

Now Jin jerks awake on Kame's couch, but it can't have been long because he's still sweaty from the way up the stairs, up the elevator, into Kame's apartment, and, after a detour to the bathroom and a quick bout of vomiting, into the bedroom.

He remembers slumping onto Kame's couch, catching his breath while Sakamoto dropped onto the loveseat, not at all sweaty but, now that Jin knows the guy a minimal bit, obviously tipsy.

Sakamoto's snoring quietly, stretched awkwardly across the armrests. Jin knows Kame might never speak to him again if Sakamoto misses the playoffs because Kame's loveseat ruined his back, so he wakes the guy and tells him he knows where the spare room is. "If you want to sleep it off."

Sakamoto frowns. "Two-person sleepovers look bad," he says, and Jin has heard that one too many times to even try to argue, so he adds, resigned, "Three's a party." 

Which is how Jin finds himself back on Kame's spare bed, minus Meisa, next to a huge pretty guy who hogs the blankets like Jin's wife and snores like a boar. 

-

The third time Jin wakes up in Kame's apartment is a day later, when the door to the spare room rattles open, and those godawful snores kilter off.

"Oh my," someone rasps, and the door rattles shut so fast the wood creaks in protest. Then rattles open again, more slowly. "This isn't a dream, is it?"

Jin looks blearily at a grey-faced, but obviously intrigued Kame, who is clutching the door like it's a cane for the hungover.

"This look like a dream to you?" Jin asks, and yawns. Next to him, Sakamoto grunts and pulls the rest of the covers off of Jin. What a dick.

Kame contemplates. "Was there sex?"

"Was there _sex_?" Jin's eyebrows shoot up, but that's all the moving he can take at this hour, so he yawns again, and lets his head flop back down. He points at Kame, "Flat-out drunk," at himself, "Happily married," and at Sakamoto, "Snores like a boar." Then curls his finger back towards Kame. "Also, the puking."

"Shame," Kame says, purses his lips, and lets the door rattle shut in front of him again.

And suddenly Jin is glad for the snores, because a grown man shouldn't get the least bit flustered at a quip like that. Maybe that's why he edits that last part out when rehashes the story to Meisa over lunch, but she seems almost as intrigued as Kame at the thought of Jin in a bed with Sakamoto, so Jin hurries to give her the personalized autograph Sakamoto had doodled onto a bottle of nail polish Kame suavely provided during breakfast.

-

The fourth time Jin wakes up in Kame's apartment, it's the middle of the night again, and it's not Sakamoto but Kame's niece sitting on the loveseat, telling him she can't sleep, and that Uncle Kazu should hurry up and return because he promised her French Toast for breakfast. 

"Mako-chan," he starts, and if it sounds remotely whiney it's because it's late and he's getting old, too old for three in the non-clubbing morning, with a stiff neck and a crick in his back.

He gets shot down immediately. "It's Macchan now. Mako-chan is an old hat."

"Macchan," Jin says again, and drags himself up by the armrest. "He's only been gone for two hours. That's a lot of time to go until French toast, right?"

Mariko pouts, like Kame used to when he first tried on his acting shoes. "But I really can't sleep."

 _So?_ Jin thinks, but crawls to the sideboard to rummage through Kame's Blue-rays anyway, where he finds a section marked with glued-on glitter hearts. Macchan falls asleep halfway through _Freaky Friday_ , but Jin keeps watching anyway, because he's forgotten how it ends.

The lock clicks while the credits roll. Shoes clunk quietly, a thud and another, and Kame slips back into the apartment. There are bits of make-up still clinging to his hairline.

"Is the intern dead?" Jin whispers, dramatically. 

Kame huffs. "Killed him with kindness." His voice is low enough not to wake Macchan, who sleeps like the dead, despite her claims to the contrary. "His boss shouldn't have let him play around without making a backup copy first. Her fault, not his."

And yet Jin does not think she is dead, either. More likely killed with kindness, too, though of the glacially polite sort.

It's Kame who carries Macchan back to the guest bedroom, and Jin who unearths and carries the turtle plushie from where she'd hidden it under the cushion of the loveseat.

She snuffles as Kame covers her under the blanket, and Jin thinks of his own daughter at home with his wife. He would have a hundred children, if Meisa were willing.

Kame thanks him for the umpteenth time this night. Jin waves it off one more time, says, "It's okay, I'm happy to help out in a pinch."

Admittedly, Kame's choices had been limited, what with the rest of his family unavailable. Not a lot of other potential down-on-their-luck babysitters Mariko knew and Kame's brother would trust.

"You're a good friend," Kame tells him, voice soft, and Jin finds himself staying on that back-destroying couch, because it's late anyway and there'll be French Toast and a sleepy Macchan in the morning once he wakes – for the fifth time – in Kame's apartment. 

-

The sixth time, Jin wakes next to a snore that he's been thoroughly traumatized by already, thank you very much. So it's not at all a surprise to see Sakamoto sprawled out next to him on top of both blankets in all his pretty, boar-snoaring glory.

What is a surprise, however, are the three other baseball dudes rolled up in thick futons, spread across all the available floor space, snoring blissfully and ferociously.

Jin doesn't remember how all these guys got into Kame's spare room after he fell asleep, but he doesn't have a headache either, so it's a mystery that must wait until he has escaped this cacophony of manliness.

To his dawning horror, the living room is quite occupied as well, one baseball guy after another, and there's snores coming even from the _bathroom_ , and yeah, he remembers the party alright, but doesn't anyone have homes to go home to?

He hisses the questions at Kame, who, like royalty, resides over his bed and bedroom all on his own.

"Course they do," Kame mumbles. "But where'd be the fun in that?"

Jin lies on top of the blanket, because unlike Sakamoto, he is no blanket thief. "I don't know how they can stand it."

Kame hums, tugs at the blanket until it slips out from under Jin. "'S like old school training camp. Makes 'em feel younger. Plus, season's over so nobody cares." He throws half of the blanket over Jin. "Now hush, and sleep."

So Jin sleeps, because who is he to argue with the sole person inside this apartment who knows how to breathe politely in his sleep.

Also, these sheets smell even better than the one on the spare.

-

Actually, that wasn't the sixth time. It was the eighth time.

Jin remembers that tidbit after Kame has, inexplicably, managed to procure enough breakfast to sufficiently feed the army of baseball players until they vacate the premises, one after another. Except Sakamoto, who's still doing his boar impression over in the spare bedroom. Jin can't help but be impressed.

Jin remembers there was a sixth time and a seventh time when one of the baseball guys, before leaving, claps his shoulder hard enough for Jin to grunt, and tells him not to be an idiot, because a song that wonderful needs producing immediately before someone else steals it. He also demands a first-print, signed copy, and the remaining baseball guys echo the sentiment, much to Jin's befuddlement. 

So he eats all of Kame's pickles while mulling it over, because he just doesn't get this baseball crowd.

-

The sixth time, the actual one, Jin wakes up leaning against Kame's door outside the apartment. So maybe it doesn't count, but since Jin's the one counting, what he counts, goes.

Nothing goes, that sixth time. Jin is confused about the sleeping-while-standing part at first, but Kame takes one look at him, an angry look, and says, "Not safe to drive all the way home, huh?" He's out of breath and clutching his mobile, and yeah, that's what Jin had said, when the streetlights had gone blurry. "Damn it, Jin, you weren't safe to drive _at all_!"

Well, it's not exactly Jin's fault that he doesn't have a company car with his private driver anymore. No driver to be driven by, no money for the cab fare to get him all the way back to Tokyo after the gig in the outskirts of Yokohama. And not enough of a death wish to get mauled on the train by the random fan, or non-fan.

"Uhuh," Jin says, and sways.

Kame smells like one of his ritzy bars when he unlocks the door and pulls Jin inside, like smoke and wine and posh aftershave. Jin may or may not tell him so.

"You're staying," Kame snaps, and confiscates Jin's car keys.

So Jin, once again, ends up in the spare bed. Right before he falls asleep, he's informed that Kame is expecting company. "But they're quite tame, nothing to worry about."

This is _quite_ a blatant lie, since Jin wakes, for the seventh time, to a song so filthy it would make even Jin's gang of guys blush, and sung by a male choir unable to harmonize, or hit any kind of note, really. He tells himself it's professional curiosity that has him open the door, but what he finds in Kame's living room is not experimental auto-tune, but a horde of baseball guys clutching beers and each other while rhapsodizing about different kinds of balls, in all their dictionary-listed incarnations.

Among the horde, enthroned on top of the backrest of the couch, sits Kame, with his own beer, and—yeah, ok, so one person's hitting the notes at least. 

The song ends with a choreographed wriggle of a dozen baseball loins, plus Kame, whose wriggle at least looks halfway artful. "A fine pair of BAAA-HAALLS!" they yodel on the last wriggle, and Jin tries not to recall how much more these guys make on their paycheck than him, because—really? 

"THAT'S the man!" Kame shouts suddenly, and all eyes snap to Jin. Everyone stares, frozen post-wriggle, the whole burly horde of them. Jin has never felt as small and... slender.

Jin waves a feeble "hi", but then someone yells, "Get the man a GUITAR", and in a blink Jin's in a corner, holding one of Kame's precious pet guitars that usually adorn the wall, and the room informs him he has thirty minutes to write them a baseballsy hymn. Because it turns out that, pre-wriggle, Kame boasted about Jin's teenage 30-Minute Songwriting Challenges, which had covered anything and everything from tragic love over competitive burping (sung, not burped) to high-heeled shoes. Anything that Kame could throw at him when they were bored and waiting for their cue to jump T&T's stage. 

Jin feels tremendously awkward, but he's not one to let down a friend, not even a bragging one, so he holds up a hand, snaps "Sixty minutes!" and tells them to turn their backs. Then backtracks and tells a few of them to un-turn their backs, because he needs some catchwords, and baseball is so not his strongest suit. They happily shout random words at him for a couple of minutes, which Jin scribbles down in a random pattern. Then he shoos them away, and reminds himself that everyone else is drunk and won't remember this anyway. It can't get worse than their Ode to Balls.

So he throws in some pathos and some sky metaphors, some random baseball words and the fervor of a young, much younger Kame drunkenly listing 101 reasons why baseball ruled over soccer, as well as the scraps of his one and only but ultimately failed attempt at a baseball song from when he and Kame were still doing the songwriting challenges.

Then he tweaks it some more, swirls around a few lines, dials back on the pathos just a bit in favor of a smidge of honest heartbreak, and by the time he's trying chords, he thinks it might actually be marginally better than the Ode to Balls.

The hour's up faster than he'd like, and it's a whole load of crap, still, but he has a full song, and Kame is beaming at him like the proudest to proud when Jin announces he'll present it.

He strums the first chords, sings the first dreadful line. Sings the second, too, despite how the guys go quiet, and then more quiet, and yeah, it really is that awful, but Jin's embarrassed enough not to let the song taper off, keeps it going instead, on to the chorus, keeps his voice strong and clear because at least he has that and yes, he _can_ be professional, can serenade the shit out of this even if the schmaltz makes him fight down a continuous grimace.

Then he's done, the last chord's played, but the room is quiet. In shock at the horror of it probably, so Jin reconsiders his assessment of the Ode to Balls, which might be the better crowd-pleaser after all. And the room stays quiet, still, until Kame rasps, "Oh my," and there's a sniffle from the bearded guy in the back, and then there's a holler, and Jin is hugged by a string of sweaty baseball dudes with tears in their eyes.

Jin didn't know they were _that_ drunk, so he can't exactly refuse when they ask him to sing it again, and once more, though they destroy the chorus with their off-note sing-along. 

Jin finally begs off to bed to claps on his back and Kame shouting, "That's my MAN!", and it's a testament to his bone-deep exhaustion that he sleeps through the rest of the party.

So when he wakes up to Sakamoto and the Three Snoring Boars, it's the eighth time, actually.

-

Kame, it occurs to Jin somewhere between the eighth and the ninth time, must have invested in an exceptionally high level of sound absorption for his apartment. That, or he's bribing all the neighbors with sexual favors. 

-

By the ninth time, Jin's worth has increased by a few dozen million yen, because baseball fans and teams alike, from high school all the way up to Major League, appear to have entered a frenzied mass delusion.

The ninth time, Jin wakes to the muted sounds of a shower, and the much less muted sound of Kame singing that horrid song at the top of his lungs. Presumably while giving himself a scalp massage with one of those spidery things he has stashed in his bathroom cabinet. Or the Panasonic. That one is even creepier.

When Kame starts to yelp his way into the chorus, Jin groans and buries his head underneath the pillow. 

Next to him, Sakamoto, thankfully awake and not-boar-snoring for once, rumbles, "Greatest song ever."

Of all the songs... Jin could sob at the irony. Instead, he lifts the pillow incrementally, just enough to glare at Sakamoto. "We really got to stop meeting like this."

Sakamoto shrugs. "If it bothers you, crash in Kame's bed next time you make triple platinum."

Jin huffs, rolls off the mattress, and—

"Whoa, Akanishi, I don't swing that way!"—straight onto another baseball guy. Who stops in his tracks mid-push, the huge pans of his hands stilling on Jin's sides. "Though you did indeed write the greatest baseball song of all time, so I might reconsider."

"Do none of you have homes?" Jin asks the room at large.

Sakamoto drawls, "Don't _you_?" and that shuts Jin up alright.

-

The tenth time does not happen. Not for a long while, at least. Kame is back to touring and baseballing, so Jin catches up with him in bars, on the phone, via messaging, and, rarely, because Jin now fears being mauled by mass-deluded baseball fans even more than he fears the random boyband fan on the train, on the stands of a baseball game. Meisa, who has had a boost of confidence from Jin's songwriting mishap, has landed a minor part in a Hollywood movie about Japanese martial art hackers, and since there are further casting opportunities coming up in Los Angeles that year, Jin spends all the time that he isn't promoting his accidental re-stardom on raising his daughter.

Who, to his dismay, knows the song by heart, like all the kids in her kindergarten. Perhaps because it got played as the jingle for the latest _Doraemon Goes KoshienTM_ toy series. Jin's given up on trying to wrap his head around it all, and has resigned himself to being the daddy who fetches his guitar and Sings The Song whenever his daughter snaps her tiny fingers.

-

And then Jin's album hits the shelves, and he doesn't give a damn that it's a horrid clash in music styles, because if he'd known that penning this century's baseball hymn would give him full creative leeway with anything and everything else, he'd have stolen Kame's baseball gear and slept in it for inspiration ages ago. 

He isn't sure if he should be relieved or offended that the English version of the baseball song only made it onto number 99 on the US Billboard 100. Kame has recruited their entire circles of family, friends, and acquaintances to bombard Ellen with letters about Jin's prowess, without much success so far, but Jin has begun to mentally prepare himself, just in case, because Kame unabashedly loves that show, and might bawl if Jin's butt ever touched the holy cushion of Ellen's sofa.

Jin gets the occasional text from Sakamoto and the other guys, and while that still puzzles him, they're a change in pace from the people he usually hangs out with, so he tends not to turn them down when he's roped into having drinks at their favorite hangouts. He secretly thinks that what they _really_ want is for him to do The Song during karaoke, but he has missed harmonizing with Kame more than he'd ever admit, and Kame kind of goes hip-swivellingly-crazy over duetting that song, so he never turns them down during that part of the night, either.

If, later into the night, Jin and Kame sometimes sneak off into one of the smaller booths and wail their way through a KAT-TUN song or two, that's just between the two of them, and the others are polite enough to pretend they are just going on extended bathroom breaks.

Jin is on a stadium tour, his daughter in tow because Meisa is still auditioning in Los Angeles, when a recording of one of their duets of The Song goes viral. It's audio-only and thus hip-swivel-free, thankfully. And crappy enough that Jin is pretty sure it was recorded from outside the VIP karaoke booth, not inside of it, and the baseball crowd profusely assures him the same.

 _Can't blame them, whoever it was_. Sakamoto writes. _Sounds like gold, if you ask me_.

-

The tenth time Jin wakes up in Kame's apartment, he's in Kame's bed, on top of the covers and still in the baseball uniform from yesterday. When he clears his throat, it's hoarse, and a look at Kame's alarm clock says it's probably only been a few hours since they talked themselves to sleep, high on the rush of a successful performance and the roar of the crowd.

Kame's voice is as scratchy as Jin's throat feels when he asks, from the other half of the bed. "Want to watch it on YouTube?"

Jin usually cringes at watching himself perform, but it's not every day that Johnny's lets one of their idols loose for a collaboration, so he finds himself nodding anyway. Kame grins and, with a flourish, hits some buttons that make a screen roll down from the ceiling. Jin's never seen the thing, but he is not at all surprised, because Kame is a lazy posh, when his schedule allows for it. 

Kame hits play, and there they are: On the field, in baseball pants, their names emblazed across the backs of the uniforms, and though the lyrics are still as schmaltzy as Jin made them, he remembers that it didn't feel that way at all, out on that field, with the crowd roaring and singing along, and Kame's voice ringing out effortlessly alongside Jin's. 

It's sweet, in a way, like old glitter costumes and the scrunch of Nakamaru's nose in Jin's memory. But there's something heavier settling in Jin's chest as he watches, sweet still, but more like molasses, thick and dark, and warm to the touch.

"Not bad," Kame says, off-handed, but his voice is odd, like the sweetness is getting to him to.

"Yeah," Jin agrees, clears his throat, and fishes out his phone to text the link to Meisa. She replies immediately, with a smile, a thumbs-up, and an "I'm happy for you."

She returned from the US a few days ago, but they haven't had much of a chance to really sit down and catch up. Their daughter is too giddy to have her mother back, so it'll just have to wait a bit more, until things go back to normal. It's okay, though. Jin is happy to play second fiddle, because they're a proper family again, and their worries are gone now, sung away by a crowd.

He steals Kame's remote and hits replay.

-

The eleventh time, Jin wakes up staring at the ceiling of Kame's spare bedroom. His eyes still burn, just as much as when he finally found some sleep. So he closes them again, because if he's not awake, then Meisa will not have left him, and he won't feel guilty over how little he actually hurts over _her_ , and how much more over losing what they have built for the three of them.

He doesn't want things to change. 

Doesn't want anything but the classic, happy family for his daughter. Doesn't want the inevitable tears for her, the looks and the gossip and the disillusionment of Mum and Dad not loving each other anymore.

Meisa's hand had been folded around his so carefully, but her voice had been firm when she'd said, "We can still be happy, and still be a family, and still be happily married, Jin. Just not to each other."

Because Meisa fell in love in Los Angeles, with a Japanese cameraman. At least he lives in Tokyo, too. No need to ship Theia back and forth across the Pacific.

Jin squeezes his eyes shut, and turns his face into Kame's spare pillows.

When he opens his eyes again, hours later, he hasn't slept at all, but Kame is there, the bed dipping under his weight, and his sweater feels softer against the wetness on Jin's face than the high-end cotton of the pillowcase.

-

Jin doesn't leave until another day has passed, so the twelfth and thirteenth time are not among his proudest moments, although Kame doesn't seem to mind witnessing Jin being an emotional, unshowered mess. He even relocated Jin to the master bedroom after Jin had finished crying his way through Kame's sweater, because apparently Kame is a believer in movies and high-calorie food for occasions such as this one, which he explains to Jin after the first half of the _Naked Gun_.

"Since when?" Jin asks, unbelieving, and turned slightly away from Kame, because as gross as it is, Jin hasn't been able to muster the will to brush his teeth yet. "I thought your go-to response to heartbreak was to work yourself into the ground."

"It was," Kame admits, and turns up the volume. "I just haven't been heartbroken for a while."

Jin hands him the cookie box. "Call me up when you ever are again. I owe you."

"You don't," Kame says, and nibbles at a cookie.

They watch Lieutenant Frank Drebin attempt to protect the Queen, and while Kame laughs softly, Jin has worked himself up to a happy huff or two.

"Anyway," Kame says, slow and careful, like Jin is made from glass. "I don't think I will be." He hands Jin a cookie, his fingers brushing the crumbs on Jin's briefly. "Heartbroken, that is."

The cookies help with attempting light-heartedness. "You becoming a monk?"

"Careful," Kame says, and flicks his fingers against Jin's shoulder without ever looking away from the screen. "Don't tease the provider of shelter and cookies."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Monks are serious business." 

Kame rolls his eyes. "I _will_ take the cookies."

"You won't," Jin says, and settles back against his cushion. There's a twinge in his chest, even now, but it's duller now, subdued by sugar and Kame's company.

Kame nudges his shoulder against Jin's, and concedes, "I won't." 

They stay like that all the way through the rest of the movie and the first sequel, until Jin needs the bathroom and the pizza delivery arrives. They fall asleep during the second sequel, empty pizza boxes, cookie crumbs, and all. 

Jin wakes up in the morning to a cup of coffee on the nightstand and Kame ripping away the blanket.

Jin feels like this calls for protest. "What happened to not leaving this bed until we watch all three _Naked Guns_?"

"Technically, we already did," Kame says, taking a sip from his own coffee while he moves the blanket out of Jin's reach. When Jin opens his mouth to argue the point, Kame says, "But." 

"But you'll bring me breakfast and we'll watch it again?" Jin tries for big eyes. He's too sleepy and sad to really open them wider then a squint, though.

Kame snorts. "But I'll bring you breakfast and we'll watch it again, yes. After you shower. Thoroughly. The slovenly phase has concluded."

Jin wants to be offended, but he does smell, probably. So he mentally works through the steps that will take him out of the bed that's growing colder by the second with the blanket being walked out of the room.

He's mentally made it all the way into the shower when Kame, now off in the kitchen, shouts, "And don't forget to brush your teeth!"

 _Right,_ Jin thinks with a sigh, and starts over with the mental mapping.

It's worth the French toast, in the end.

-

Sakamoto, as it turns out, does have a home, but he also has a secret fiancée who will ban him to the couch if he comes home after drinking.

"I see you've been upgraded," Sakamoto observes after the twenty-fifth time Jin wakes up at Kame's. Or maybe the twenty-eighth. It's difficult to keep track; Jin's been spending a lot of time here since the divorce proceedings went underway. Kame had said he didn't mind. Gave Jin a spare key, actually, but Jin still feels weird using it.

Jin hands Sakamoto the coffee. "Upgraded to what? Sexy singlehood?" The sting has faded, mostly; it helps to try not to care.

Sakamoto gives him a look, and slams back the coffee in two long gulps. Then he says flatly, "Of course, you _sexy thing_." He pulls a face like Jin is obtuse. "The bed, man." 

"Oh. That." Jin re-fills his own coffee, because it's way too early to suffer through a session of Sakamoto without a strong dose of caffeine. Even if Sakamoto isn't snoring up boars right now. "Kame's bed's nicer, yes. Better on my back, actually."

Sakamoto snorts. "I bet it is."

Jin frowns, because huh, but then Kame rushes past, hair hidden under a cap, phone pressed to his ear, a bunched-up folder under his arm. He waves at them without really looking, and vanishes into the hallway. It's only seven in the morning. Jin thought Kame's driver was due at eight.

"Excuse me," he tells Sakamoto, grabs a banana off the table, and, on second thought, his own cup of coffee. By the time he enters the hallway, Kame has just slipped into his second boot. 

"Here," Jin says. "Remember not to starve, yeah?"

Kame stops with his hand on the door handle. Slowly takes the banana, and pushes it under his arm along with the folder. Then takes the coffee, in the pink sparkly mug Jin suspects was a gift by Mariko, though with Kame, you never knew.

"Thank you," Kame says, just as slowly, but then seems to remember himself and jumps back into action and out of the door with a hasty "See you later."

When Jin returns to the kitchen, Sakamoto gives Jin another look and says, "You sure are domestic."

So Jin rolls his eyes, turns on his heel and heads back to Kame's bedroom, because he really can't deal with Sakamoto this early in the morning, and no decent songwriting can be had before eleven, anyway.

-

Jin thinks he's way into the fifties by now, but it's difficult to keep counting when his car naturally drives to Kame's whenever Meisa shuffles back from the cameraman's place for her week of house-sitting and parenting.

Theia has taken to it surprisingly well, after the initial dramatics, once Jin and Meisa actually managed to agree on a solution both of them could live with. Jin doesn't think they can make the arrangement official, since the family courts seem to be stuck in the last century, but their lawyers are trying to draw up some paperwork anyway, and Jin trusts Meisa enough to believe that they can keep it up in the long run, legal basis or not.

Jin even has his own small but fancy uptown apartment, at his lawyer's recommendation. But it's barren and quiet, and makes Jin feel more like a lonely has-been than the responsible, well-off divorcee-to-be his lawyer wants to paint him as.

So when it's not his turn of the week, he stays over at Kame's, where the couch molds to his back like it knows him, where he can wash up dishes that aren't just his own, and where the sheets smell of Kame's fancy-ass laundry detergent. It's warm and lived-in and not-lonely, even though Kame and Jin don't even see each other for more than some half-asleep greetings or goodbyes on most days. Kame's schedule is as unpredictable as it is full, and Jin crams his into the weeks that he isn't being a full-time dad and housekeeper.

Jin never thinks much of their sleeping arrangements. Crashes face down onto the bed after a work-out, and obediently rolls to his side when Kame nudges him awake hours later. Tiptoes into the room when Kame is fast asleep, and slides noiselessly under the sheets because Kame always leaves Jin's cushion fluffed and the blanket turned down. Ignores Kame's alarm clock, and accepts the second cushion with a grateful grunt, because mornings suck, and are generally too hard to bear.

Doesn't think much of it at all, because it's cozy and companionable and feels right at a time when almost everything else feels off-kilter, whether it's his divorce or the crazy turn his career has taken.

Doesn't think much of it even when he wakes up to Kame's breath in his hair, or the occasional leg thrown over his calves. Doesn't think, either, when he wakes up in the middle of the night with his arm stretched out, toward the middle of the bed, his fingers brushing against Kame's arm.

So they move into the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and then Jin just stops counting, because who even cares.

-

Then it's another night, and they've actually not fallen asleep yet, because for once they had a few hours to spend together before going to bed, and they've only just cut the lights. For once, there's nobody snoring in the spare room, or the living-room, or the tub. And Jin is half-asleep, basking in the content glow that hanging out with Kame one-on-one tends to give him.

It makes the first stirrings of a song flutter around in his head, and he scrunches his nose, because this is not a time for work.

"What?" Kame asks quietly. 

"Nothing. Just got some words stuck in my head. It's annoying, is all."

Kame hums, and that's all for a bit. Jin shifts again, burrows deeper into the pillow. Shifts once more, and considers slipping out to get a pen and some paper after all. Though he really doesn't want to. He's comfortable. Warm. Just not... sleepy.

A rustle, Kame turning around, facing toward Jin. "Can't sleep?"

Jin turns around, too, underneath his blanket nest, and stares at the darkness where Kame's head must be. "Not really. You?"

Quiet, and then a wet sound, Kame licking his lips and swallowing, maybe. "Me neither."

Jin breathes, and feels the air return when Kame breathes back. It's easy to get lost in the back and forth, and Jin wants nothing less than to get up. He still offers, though. "I can take the other bed. If that'd help." 

Kame huffs, a tickle along Jin's skin. "No, it's okay. It's good."

Jin thinks. "Want to watch a movie?"

Another rustle, another breath. "Actually," Kame says, slowly. "Actually I'm kind of..." He trails of, and there's a small movement on top of Jin's blanket, above his arm.

"What?" Jin asks, and keeps his arm still.

"... horny," Kame finishes, and it's so unexpected Jin can't help it, he wheezes a breathy laugh at the jolt it sends through him.

Kame is silent. Jin feels awkward, suddenly, because... it's not like there should be any shame in that. So he forces his voice to stay light, a friendly tease, despite the blush he can feel spreading across his cheeks. "So... you want to watch _that_ kind of movie then?" 

Kame is silent, again, and it's slightly unnerving. Then the touch on Jin's blanket moves away, and Kame's hand slips beneath it, searches its way down Jin's arm to his wrist. "May I?" he asks, voice low and dark, and Jin, Jin _gets_ it, and his face blazes hot like a furnace, his heart doing one frantic thump.

He nods, dumbly, the cotton smooth against his jaw, then remembers the darkness. He rasps out a "yeah," and his stomach goes tight, his breath speeding up, as Kame slowly pulls their hands out from under Jin's blanket, and beneath his own. 

Jin's knuckles bump against Kame's thigh, his fingers slip across soft cloth, and then Kame takes a deep, audible breath, and Jin's hand is pulled up to Kame's crotch, pressed down on Kame's cock, hard and hot underneath the pants, jerking up against Jin's palm.

Jin's breath hisses out in a heady rush, and his hand spasms, tightens on reflex.

Kame makes a small, choked noise, pushes his hips forward and grinds his hand down. Curls his fingers around Jin's, and makes them _grip_.

Jin gets hard so fast it makes him pant, his breath mingling with Kame's hitched little groans as Jin hesitantly moves his hand the way Kame's fingers guide him. The cloth is wet, now, where Jin rubs his fingers along the head, dragging the cloth along.

Then Kame pulls at his hand again, and Jin follows slowly, past the waistband and down and—

"Yes," Kame gasps, as Jin wraps his hand around his cock, skin to skin, and it's slick and hard and Jin knows this part, but not like this, never like this, his own hip twitching helplessly against the blanket, and Kame's hand curling, pushing, leading him in the familiar slide from the base to the top.

Kame moans, and then the pillow rustles, the moan now muffled, so Jin inches closer, and closer still, until his lips brush against Kame's neck, which is stretched taut and tastes sweaty when Jin flicks out his tongue. Kame's cock seems to go harder, dripping at the touch, so Jin opens his mouth over the dip of Kame's throat, licks and sucks as Kame's hip go frantic, his grip over Jin's scrambling, and then Kame groans, deep and shivery, and comes in his pants, all over Jin's hand. 

Jin keeps his lips pressed against Kame's throat, his hand motionless inside the mess in Kame's pants, while Kame breathes into the pillow. Shivers at how fast it went, and how close he is.

A few beats, then Kame squeezes Jin's hand, mess and all, and murmurs, "You freaking out?"

Jin swallows, his mouth brushing along Kame's skin at the movement. He's so hard it hurts, and his head has gone light. "Should I?" he says finally, his voice hoarse even though he wasn't the noisy one.

"Depends," Kame says, and draws back a bit, pulling Jin's hand out of his pants, out from under the blanket. Brings their hands up between them, and brushes a slow kiss along the back of Jin's thumb. "On whether you want to stop—" another kiss, warm over cold wetness, "—or whether you want to have me blow you."

Jin's mouth drops open at the thought, breath leaving in a whoosh.

"That a yes?" Kame drawls, and there's his tongue, licking along the crease of his thumb. 

Jin nods, frantically, then remembers Kame can't see, and his fingers twitch, the tip of his forefinger stroking along the corner of Kame's mouth. It stretches into a smile. "I think that's a yes," Kame says, and then Jin's finger is surrounded by moist heat, and when his hips jerk forward, there's a thigh moving up to meet them, pushing and pushing more, insistent, like the hand on his chest, so Jin lets himself fall, rolls onto his back, and lets Kame go down on him.

-

Jin doesn't know any more how often he has woken up in Kame's apartment, but this is the first time he wakes up smelling like sex, with a chest pressed to his back, and an erection straining up against him. There's a hand slung across his hip, which tightens slightly when he stops breathing, for a wild second, while his mind catches up.

"You good?" Kame asks quietly, against the nape of Jin's neck.

Then it clicks, suddenly, an easy shift, and it feels right to arch back, just a bit, because it's Kame there, in Kame's apartment and the bed they've been sharing for months; the bed that smells of that same fancy-ass laundry detergent, and of them, together. 

It still feels the same. The same, yet better. And it sends a shiver down Jin's spine in exhilaration.

"'m good," Jin says, finally, and smiles into the pillow.

Kame moves his hand up Jin's side, lets it trail across Jin's chest, until it brushes along Jin's chin. "Good." He nudges, fingers warm along Jin's cheek, so Jin leans back, and lets himself be kissed, soft and warm.

"Good," Jin agrees, when they draw apart.

-

When Jin wakes up a few weeks later, he's on the couch, the guitar on the table, and he's got a song written on the back of Kame's last Panasonic massage poster, which Kame brought back home to demonstrate how horribly he had been photoshopped.

Kame is perched on the arm of the couch, his hair still idol-styled. He smells like he ran a concert marathon and then straight home, to Jin. "Heartbreak on the Horizon?" he reads, and runs a hand through Jin's hair. "Should I worry?"

Jin stretches, pushing into the touch. "Just read the lyrics."

Kame reads quietly. Jin waits, and wonders when he'll get to the chorus. 

"This... is about baseball."

"Yep," Jin says, poking at the holes in Kame's jeans. "It's a metaphor, about the two of us."

Kame sets aside the poster carefully, and yes, he's a bit teary-eyed, so Jin feels just the tiniest bit smug, until Kame gets up and onto the couch, which means on top of Jin, and yeah, Jin can work with that, too.

"You wrote another baseball song?"

Jin grins. "I hear I'm awesome at it."

"Except it's about you and me."

Jin lets his legs fall open, lets Kame sink between them. "It better be," he tells Kame, and smudges a kiss along his cheek. It's easy, still, easy as breathing, and it makes his heart pound.

Kame drops his forehead against Jin's shoulder. "Jin. You hate baseball."

"I hate baseball," Jin agrees, no use arguing that. "But I do love you." 

Kame goes still, so still Jin brings up his arms, and strokes along Kame's shoulders. His neck. His jaw, where he needs a shave. 

"Of course I do," Jin says, and Kame's breath stutters against his chest. "What did you expect?"

Kame laughs, shaky and hoarse. "You realize you'll have to sing that song a million times?"

Jin pulls him up, off his chest. Kisses him. Kisses him again, because he can. "That I will. And you know what?"

But Kame kisses back, and back, and back, and it takes quite a while, a lot of ruffled clothing, and Jin gaining another few experience points on his mission to give exemplary head, until Kame remembers. "What was that again? About the song?"

Jin wipes his mouth, and tells Kame's belly button, "It's a duet."

Because there's _no_ heartbreak on the horizon, and Jin never wants to count again.


End file.
